Jagged edges in photos with a D70

[yankfan]

How does one get rid of those nasty jagged edges...? I've been taking

a lot of shots (D70 shooting JPEG Fine) of buildings and when I'm

downloading to my imaging software (<i>NOT</i> Photoshop)I'm picking

up jagged edges and moire in a lot of them. I don't shoot RAW, as I

have no RAW converter (limited budget). Is there a procedure by which

I can get rid of the jagged edges? Thanks

[darrengold]

It's not your photo. When you view images in software the image is usually 'zoomed out' to a percentage of the original size to fit on the screen. If this is an 'odd' percentage ie 27% or 36% (it should tell you somewhere on the software taskbar or the frame the software puts around the image) the irregular sampling of the pixels gives the picture a jagged look, especially along straight lines angled across the image or moire on regular repeating patterns.

 

Try to change the viewing size to either 25% or 50% simply by zooming in or out. This will get rid of the jaggies as the pixels are being sampled at exact regular intervals (1:2 or 1:4). Irrespective of the appearance on screen it should still print perfectly.

 

Regards

[yankfan]

Darren <br>

Thanks for the answer. I have the problem when resizing for the web. Nothing seems to work.

[alan_olander1664878205]

"RawShooters Essentials" by Pixmantec ( http://www.pixmantec.com )is a free RAW converter. Also, Nikon View will do basic conversions, and it's free, too.

[yankfan]

Alan <br>

Thank you. Unfortunately I'm stuck with Win98 and neither runs with it. ;-(

[josphy]

Can you post an example of what you're seeing?

[yankfan]

Sure....here's one I took a couple days ago.<div></div>

[briany]

What program did you use to resample the photo? Download IrfanView and resampling should be much smoother. What you're showing looks like "nearest neighbor" resampling, which is about as unpleasing as you can get.

[yankfan]

Brian, I use MS Digital Image Pro 9 for everything.

[yankfan]

Brian, I took your advice, downloaded IrfanView, and the difference is noticeable...<div></div>

[serge c]

I am so impressed Brian knew the answer. You should not use neither the OS nor the program you've mentioned for anything at all.

[steve longmire]

The problem appears to be with the resolution. At 72ppi you can expect the jaggies and with 300ppi you won't unless you magnify it. Some programs can use anti-aliasing which smooths them out to a certain extent (as seen with the Irfanview image). Check to see if the program you use to process the images automatically changes it to 72ppi or if you are converting it to that resolution later (which you would do for the web). I hope this helps or atleast gets you pointed in the right direction.

[yankfan]

Steve, I'm downloading to the computer at 300, and after adjusting in software resizing to 72. I seem to still get the jaggies at 300, though. I'm going to work with that program to see if there's a way to anti-alias. It appears to only work with selected objects.

[briany]

John, glad IrfanView worked for you. PPI is meaningless for screen display -- the only thing that matters is pixel dimensions of your image. So don't worry about 300 vs. 72 PPI. Play around with IrfanView a bit and try some of the different resample methods. There's Bell, Lanczos, etc. Some do better in different situations than others.